Sausage making machines of the type long known in the industry (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,191,222 and 3,115,668) are often accompanied by a conveyor which holds the strand of linked sausages in loops, each supported by a hook on the conveyor. The loops of linked sausages are then manually removed from the conveyor by use of an elongated smokestick wherein the smokestick is inserted through a plurality of loops, and then lifted from the hooks. The loaded smokestick is then delivered to a smokehouse for conventional processing. It is important that each smokestick be fully loaded to fully utilize the capacity of the smokehouse. Completely filling the smokestick optimizes the cooking process and serves to control the thermo process better in the smokehouse. Utilization of the full length of the smokestick is also a savings in labor in that fewer sticks must be inserted and hung in the smokehouse if they are full as compared to being half empty.
Another benefit of optimally filled smokesticks is to minimize the amount of touching of sausages of adjacent loops. The touching of adjacent sausages leave white spots where they engage each other. This product is fully cooked but does not look that way, and the white spots can possibly be a basis for downgrading the product. Thus, the smokestick should be fully loaded, but not overloaded so that the touching phenomenon takes place.
As is well known, shirred artificial casings of known length are commonly used to encase a strand of sausage material. The strand is extruded into the casing which is then twisted and pinched into a plurality of sausage links of equal length. The linked strand is then sequentially looped on the hooks of a conveyor with each hook carrying a loop of linked sausages containing a predetermined number. With these shirred casings the casing length can be chosen to optimally fill the smokestick, the machine is programmed to set the number of sausages per loop and the hook spacing on the conveyor will determine the gap between loops. For example, with an artificial casing having a total length of 120 feet, (102 useable feet) and with sausages being linked to a length of 5 inches, 243 sausages per casing will be produced. If the hook spacing in the conveyor is 17/8ths inches, 9 sausages per loop would give the operator 27 loops of sausage spaced at intervals of 17/8ths inches. In that case, 51" of a 61" smokestick would be used, leaving sufficient length for hanging the smokestick in the smokehouse. As shirred artificial casings are supplied in consistent lengths, there is no need to count the number of loops for each stick.
However, in the case of natural casings, which vary in diameter and length, the process of fully loading a smokestick is much more difficult. Fully loading a smokestick with natural casings can involve the use of a partial casing, multiple casings, or multiple casings and partial casings. Currently, sausage machine operators have to count off loops of the product and then make separations in the middle of a natural casing if necessary.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus for determining the number of linked sausages for deposit on a smokestick for both artificial and natural casing materials.
A further object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for determining the number of linked sausages for deposit on a smokestick which is accurate and efficient.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for determining the number of linked sausages for deposit on a smokestick which will permit the operator of the sausage encasing machine to easily and quickly recognize when a predetermined number of linked sausages and loops have been delivered to the conveyor for optimally loading a smokestick of predetermined length.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.